Randy Carlyle, who guided the Toronto Maple Leafs to an epic late-season collapse by losing 12 of their last 14 games, is returning behind the bench next season. Not only that, but the veteran head coach was rewarded for the team’s failure with a two-year contract extension on Thursday.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This is the Leafs, a team that celebrates mediocrity with the same type of passion that others use to celebrate championships.

A year ago, Dave Nonis was rewarded with a five-year extension after Toronto finished in fifth place in the Eastern Conference and then lost in the first round of the playoffs. In January, captain Dion Phaneuf was re-signed for seven years at a greater cap hit than Norris Trophy winners Zdeno Chara and Erik Karlsson.

Brendan Shanahan’s arrival as the Leafs president of hockey operations has so far not changed the pattern.

On Thursday, Shanahan had a chance to put his stamp on the team. If he wanted to send a message that complacency would no longer be tolerated, he could have not only fired Carlyle but dismissed general manager Dave Nonis, the rest of the management team and promised to clean out the dressing room.

Five other teams (Carolina, Florida, Nashville, Vancouver and Washington) fired their head coach this summer. The Leafs chose to fire three of their assistants (Dave Farrish, Scott Gordon and Greg Cronin), two of whom Carlyle had inherited when he took the job two years ago.

The message to fans, then, is clear: The players — not Carlyle — are to blame for how last season ended.

“First of all, if you’re worried about optics in this market, it’s going to be a disaster,” Nonis said in a conference call. “I think you have to make a decision on what you think is the best decision for the organization. And this, in our minds, was clearly the best option.

“This is a guy that we believe can get the job done for us.”

Shanahan and Nonis appear to believe more in what Carlyle has accomplished so far. He was the first head coach in nine years to get the Leafs into the playoffs. And up until mid-March, when the team spiraled out of the playoff picture, he did have Toronto pointed towards home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

But the decision to bring him back probably does not happen if San Jose’s Todd McLellan were available or if the Leafs had been able to pry Mike Babcock out of Detroit. That he received a two-year extension on top of that is because Carlyle, who reportedly had other offers, was not going to return without some level of job security.

Still, this is not necessarily a long-term commitment. Peter Laviolette signed a two-year extension with the Philadelphia Flyers last August. Two months later, he was fired after the team lost its first three games. So Carlyle’s leash is not any longer today than it was at the end of the season.

If he stumbles, he will fall. Carlyle has to get this team, which had the worst shot-differential in the NHL, playing on the right side of the puck. If the Leafs are once again relying on Jonathan Bernier and Phil Kessel to bail them out of games, they will be doomed to repeat last season’s troughs.

On Thursday, Carlyle did not go into specifics about fourth-line usage or the value of dressing an enforcer. But he did not sound like he planned on changing his approach. He still believes that the Leafs’ strengths is their speed and ability to move the puck, but he remains convinced that what worked seven years ago when he won a Stanley Cup in Anaheim — cycling the puck, initiating contact and building an identity on intimidation — can still work today.

“I look at what’s going on in the playoffs now and the kind of style that’s being played and I don’t think it’s that much different than what we’ve been trying to convince our players to play,” he said.

Still, it’s clear something has to change. Nonis, who granted Carlyle’s wish last summer by buying out Mikhail Grabovski and acquiring Dave Bolland and David Clarkson, has the challenge of improving a defence that averaged 35.9 shots per game and solving the team’s ongoing problems at the centre position.